Median house price up but Morley warns caution

But institute president Howard Morley said key indicators – sales volume, regional rises & falls and time to sell – suggested both buyers & sellers were showing a degree of caution.

Sales volume, 7078 sales in January, was down from 8377 in December, 8404 in January 2004. 4 regions reported falls in the median price and the rises in the other 7 were modest. Mr Morley said it took 38 days to sell in January, up from 29 in December, 32 in January 2004.

“What we have is evidence of a shortage of listings, coupled with vendors showing a degree of determination on price. January is always one of the quieter months and it will be another month or 2 before we see a trend for the rest of the year,” he said.

My main concern about these statistics has always been that they don’t show a differentiation between types of property sold from month to month. Supposedly, with good volume, the differences iron out.

Not so, according to Mr Morley this time round, when supposed shifts in volume towards smaller apartments and away from top-end housing brought the Auckland City median down from $412,500 in December to $385,000 in January, helping a $15,000 fall in the Auckland metropolitan median to $340,000 and a $10,000 fall in the Auckland region median, also to $340,000.

“While the Auckland region & Auckland metropolitan region medians are down, I think we should resist reading too much into median price movements at this time of the year,” Mr Morley said, commenting that the Auckland falls “appeared to be due mainly to a fall in the Auckland City median…

“Analysis of the Auckland City figures indicated that there had been a shift in the types of properties sold during January, most probably due to increased sales of smaller apartments and lower sales of top-end properties.

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